After being hit by a flying bin in the middle of an impromptu mosh pit at Swampfest in Florida, I began to question what keeps drawing me back to these kinds of events.

It has something of a Jackass like theme park quality. As I heard over the speakers, “they came for blood.” It’s not just about landing a trick, but how hard you fall. Over the two days I was there, I saw moments of incredible riding alongside people slamming hard. With a high tolerance for pain, it’s like these people have nine lives. In the end, many were on crutches.

A recent drought meant the swamp was almost gone, and a strict burn ban prevented the fire, explosions and destruction that have defined previous years. Even without it the energy remained intense.

Now in its eighth year, Swampfest has grown from a backyard DIY BMX gathering started by Trey Jones into a larger scale, chaotic festival held in the swamps of Florida. In 2026 it took place at Waldo Motorsports Park, a landscape of dirt tracks, trees and dry cracked ground. Over the course of a month, Trey Jones and his team built a large scale DIY park embedded within the terrain, where anything goes. BMX riders, skateboarders, motorbikes, RVs, scooters, trolleys and any form of transport with wheels are all part of it.

I am not sure the photographs can fully capture what Swampfest is. It is something that has to be experienced. At one point I was lying in the back seat of my hire car, half asleep and not feeling 100%, wondering what I was actually doing there. Am I just chasing different versions of the same picture again and again? It looks like people come here to switch off, to not be judged, to go all in and let loose. But maybe no one is really switching off. Maybe everyone is here trying to feel something real, something unpredictable, something uncomfortable, maybe even a little pain.

When the burn ban is lifted and the site opened for one day, to ride and ultimately burn it all to the ground, I hope to return. To document, to experience it, and this time maybe wear a helmet.